A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of the Top-Cited Publications in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of the Top- Cited Publications in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Item Type Article; text

Authors Shi, J.; Du, X.; Cavagnaro, M.J.; Li, N.

Citation Shi, J., Du, X., Cavagnaro, M. J., & Li, N. (2021). A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of the Top-Cited Publications in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. Frontiers in Neurology, 12.

DOI 10.3389/fneur.2021.687796

Publisher Frontiers Media S.A.

Journal Frontiers in Neurology

Download date 27/09/2021 05:55:58

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/660845 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 09 June 2021 doi: 10.3389/fneur.2021.687796

A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of the Top-Cited Publications in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Jian Shi 1, Xianping Du 2, María José Cavagnaro 3 and Na Li 4*

1 Department of Spine Surgery, The Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China, 2 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, United States, 3 College of Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States, 4 Department of Radiology, Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China

Background: For measuring their impact in scientiﬁc research, the citation count of the publications is used in the bibliometric analysis, though still in the bibliometric analysis, there is no comprehensive summary of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) research. This article intends to provide the physicians and the neuroscientists with a reference guide to assess the most inﬂuential publications written on this subject through a macroscopic view of the research activities on mTBI.

Edited by: Methods: The database of the Web of Science was used to compile the 100 top- Tony L. Strickland, ranking publications on mTBI. The selected publications were evaluated on the basis of Sports Concussion Institute, the several categorizations including the type of the publications, number of citations, United States country of origin, and year of publication. Reviewed by: Dimitrios Giakoumettis, Results: Between 1946 and 2020, the 13,040 publications that were published were Pediatric Hospital of Athens, Greece included in the database. The least cited publications received 274 citations, while the Andy Wai Kan Yeung, The University of Hong Kong, China most cited received 1,748. Altogether, 71 publications were from the USA while 29 were *Correspondence: from other countries. Among all the institutions, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Na Li Center led the list with six publications. Around 100 papers, mostly on the clinical studies [email protected] in the categories of neurology and neurosciences, were published in 54 different journals. Specialty section: Conclusions: This study provides both a transverse section summary and historical This article was submitted to Neurotrauma, retrospect for the clinical advances of mTBI, and the publications of important a section of the journal observations that contributed a signiﬁcant impact on the treatment and prevention of Frontiers in Neurology mTBI had been identiﬁed. Received: 30 March 2021 Keywords: mild traumatic brain injury, top-cited publications, bibliometric analysis, visualization, neurotrauma Accepted: 27 April 2021 Published: 09 June 2021 Citation: INTRODUCTION Shi J, Du X, Cavagnaro MJ and Li N (2021) A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of the Top-Cited In the United States with the incidence of around 2.5 million emergency department visits Publications in Mild Traumatic Brain per year, Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is known to be the most common form of Injury. Front. Neurol. 12:687796. traumatic brain injury (1). With the deepening of research on mTBI, more and more academic doi: 10.3389/fneur.2021.687796 papers have been published. The information in the database will also be more complex,

Frontiers in Neurology | www.frontiersin.org 1 June 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 687796 Shi et al. Bibliometric-Analysis of Top-Cited mTBI Publications making it increasingly difficult for clinicians to find the most publications in the field of mTBI were identified and reviewed. needed and more valuable research. Therefore, requirements As illustrated in Figure 1, all keywords were continuously filtered for improving the deep understanding of mTBI, decreasing and finally stopped at 13,040 where the number of publications the morbidity, and improving the management of mTBI are stabilized, to ensure the relevance and the breadth of the search. indispensably needed. After confirming the search scope, next comes the recognition Citation rate is an important index to quantify the quality of the 100 top-cited publications from the 13,040 publications, of publications and research, although the number of citations which were arranged in reverse chronological order. Then, for one article cannot completely reflect the level and academic screening of the relevant publications was done by three quality of the research, indicating in its category, how celebrated independent researchers. After reading the full text and that article has been (2, 3). Based on the number of quantitative abstract of each selected article, data collection was completed laws, in the analysis of research literature in information according to: years, journals, authors, countries (refer to sciences, bibliometrics has become a certified method. It is being corresponding authors’ affiliations), institutions, study fields, extensively used in multiple disciplines and clinical specialties, publishers, article types, impact factors, and research methods. including cardiology, gastroenterology, anesthesiology, urology, By logging into certain other search platforms like PubMed, orthopedics, oncology, and obstetrics/gynecology (4–10). Sciencedirect, Springerlink, and BioOne, publications without However, bibliometric analysis has not yet been used to the complete information and full text were obtained. In addition, field of mTBI. Hence, this study has been intended to render we excluded publications (a) ranking below 150 and (b) about insights and perspectives in the field of mTBI of the most cited primary cerebroma such as pituitary adenomas, schwannomas, publications. The evolving trends in highly cited articles could pineocytomas, and etc. according to the selection criteria. enable the researchers to access vital information regarding the Contributions to the design and concept of the study were made requisite citation classics in the field and the overall development by all the authors. in this field around the world could also be understood and promoted to a certain extent by the bibliometric analysis RESULTS of mTBI. The Basic Characteristics of the 100 METHODS Top-Cited Publications The total number of literatures extracted from the Web of Science Three independent researchers on June 4, 2020 made use was 13,040. After our screening, we reached results that the of the Web of Science (WOS), the most professional and article with the largest citation number, 1,749 times, was an authoritative citation indexing database, to recognize the 100 top- epidemiology research on a combat-related mild traumatic brain cited publications in the field of mTBI. The keywords “mTBI,” injury in about 2,525 U.S. Army infantry soldiers published in “mild TBI,” or “mild traumatic brain injury” were used to search 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine (“Mild traumatic the database. Publications specific to mTBI were identified. There brain injury in US Soldiers returning from Iraq”). In the Annals were no restrictions on the article types. The 100 top-cited of Emergency Medicine, the article in 2008 on a clinical policy

FIGURE 1 | Flow chart showing the methodology used in the study.

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TABLE 1 | Country distribution of the top-cited articles.

Country Record count

USA 71 Canada 6 Australia 5 Sweden 4 Netherlands 4 Germany 4 UK 3 New Zealand 1 Finland 1 Belgium 1 Total 100

FIGURE 3 | Distribution of the top-cited articles per year.

Altogether, 54 journals were included with the leading of: JAMA- Journal of The American Medical Association (n = 9), New England Journal of Medicine (n = 5), Neurology (n = 5), Journal of Neurotrauma (n = 5), Lancet Neurology (n = 4), and others (n = 72). Listed as the first authors, there were around 10 authors who had contributed more than two top-cited publications. Polderman K H, the author of four of the top 100 publications led the list. Nine other authors, with two of the top 100 publications each, followed. Table 4 enlists these 10 authors. FIGURE 2 | Country distribution of the top-cited articles. The institution with the largest number of publications was led by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (n = 6), = research on evidence-based recommendations of select issues in followed by the Virginia Commonwealth University (n 4). The the management of adult mild traumatic brain injury was the remaining different institutions like the University of California one with the least citations numbering 262 (“Clinical policy: Los Angeles, Columbia University, Cornell University Weill neuroimaging and decision-making in adult mild traumatic Medical College, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, James brain injury in the acute setting”). These publications were A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, The Royal Children’s Hospital published between 1946 and 2020. Distribution of the top- (Melbourne), and The University of Texas, Galveston, USA all cited publications per year is shown in Figure 1. With close produced two publications, respectively (Table 5). to three quarters of the publications being contributed by the most prolific country, of the 100 publications from 10 different Article Types, Research Methods, and countries, the USA led by contributing 72 publications followed Categories = = = by Canada (n 17), Australia (n 5), Sweden (n 4), Figure 5 indicated the top 100 most-cited publications with = = = Netherlands (n 4), Germany (n 4), UK (n 3), and decades while Table 6 illustrated the research methods in them. other countries (Table 1, Figure 2). And the distribution of the The research methods of the top 100 most-cited publications top-cited publications per year was shown in Figure 3. could be categorized into clinical study, review, basic science research, epidemiologic research, meta-analysis, questionnaires The Most Cited Publications in mTBI and classification, and other observational cohort study. Clinical The 100 top-cited publications were cited 277.6 times on average study Etiology took the largest proportion of the top 100 and the top 10 most-cited publications on mTBI are presented in most-cited publications (n = 49), followed by review (n Table 2 with the name of the first author, impact factor, published = 25), basic science research (n = 10), and Epidemiologic year, country, and total citations. research (n = 8). The majority of the topics of the top 100 most-cited Journals, Authors, and Institutions publications in the primary field study on mTBI were on Table 3, Figure 4 enlist the journals of the 100 top-cited neurology and neurosciences, followed by those on radiology, publications in a descending order by the impact factor and psychiatry, pediatrics, rehabilitation, internal and general the average number of citations per paper (2019/last 5 years). medicine, and sport sciences, amongst others. A total of 23

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TABLE 2 | The Top 10 most-cited articles on mTBI.

Rank Title First author Journal (IF 2019) Year Country Citations

1 Mild traumatic brain injury in US soldiers Hoge, CW. New England Journal of 2008 USA 1,749 returning from Iraq Medicine (74.699) 2 Treatment of traumatic brain injury with Marion, DW. New England Journal of 2007 USA 939 moderate hypothermia Medicine (74.699) 3 The spectrum of disease in chronic McKee, AC. Brain (11.337) 2013 USA 931 traumatic encephalopathy 4 Long-Term cognitive impairment after Pandharipande, PP. New England Journal of 2013 USA 922 critical illness Medicine (74.699) 5 Acute effects and recovery time following McCrea, M. JAMA-Journal of The 2003 USA 904 concussion in collegiate football American Medical players—The NCAA concussion study Association (45.54) 6 Neuronal and glial apoptosis after Liu, XZ. The Journal of neuroscience 1997 USA 746 traumatic spinal cord injury (6.074) 7 Incidence, risk factors and prevention of Cassidy, JD. Journal of Rehabilitation 2004 Canada 737 mild traumatic brain injury: Results of the Medicine (2.046) WHO collaborating center task force on mild traumatic brain injury 8 Prognosis for mild traumatic brain injury: Carroll, LJ. Journal of Rehabilitation 2004 Canada 731 Results of the WHO collaborating center Medicine (2.046) task force on mild traumatic brain injury 9 A systematic review of brain injury Tagliaferri, F. Acta Neurochirurgica 2006 USA 725 epidemiology in Europe (1.817) 10 Evidence-based cognitive rehabilitation: Cicerone, KD. Archives of Physical 2005 USA 716 Updated review of the literature from 1998 Medicine and Rehabilitation through 2002 (3.098)

TABLE 3 | Journals with more than 2 top-100 cited articles.

Rank Journal name No.ofarticles IF(2019) IF(last5years)

1 JAMA-Journal of The American Medical 9 45.54 47.677 Association 2 New England Journal of Medicine 5 74.699 72.098 3 Neurology 5 8.77 8.899 4 Journal of Neurotrauma 5 3.793 4.417 5 Lancet Neurology 4 30.039 31.504 6 Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 3 2.814 3.721 7 Journal of Neurosurgery 3 3.968 4.33 8 Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine 3 2.046 2.236 9 Journal of The International 3 2.576 3.208 Neuropsychological Society 10 Neurosurgery 3 4.853 5.047 11 Pediatrics 3 5.359 6.45 12 American Journal of Neuroradiology 2 3.381 3.853 13 American Journal of Psychiatry 2 14.119 14.542 14 Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 2 2.154 2.666 15 Brain 2 11.337 11.931 16 Archives of Physical Medicine and 2 3.098 3.69 Rehabilitation 17 Critical Care Medicine 2 7.414 7.114 18 Journal of Athletic Training 2 2.416 3.394 19 Nature Reviews Neurology 2 27 25.125 20 Stroke 2 7.19 7.113 21 The Journal of Neuroscience 2 6.074 6.302

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FIGURE 4 | Journals with more than 2 top-100 cited articles.

TABLE 4 | Authors with two or more top-cited articles. TABLE 5 | Institutions with more than two top-100 cited articles.

Author name No. of articles Institution Record count

Polderman, KH 4 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, USA 6 Omalu, BI 2 Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA 4 Povlishock, JT 2 University of California, California, USA 2 McAllister, TW 2 University of California, Los Angeles, USA 2 Marion, DW 2 Boston University, Boston, USA 2 Johnson, VE 2 Columbia University, New York, USA 2 Guskiewicz, KM 2 Cornell University Weill Medical College, New York, USA 2 Carroll, LJ 2 Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, USA 2 Belanger, HG 2 James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, Florida, USA 2 Bazarian, JJ 2 The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia 2 The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA 2 The University of Texas, Galveston, USA 2 University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands 2 categories (the journal categories were not mutually exclusive) University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada 2 can be found and shown in Table 7. The relationship between University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA 2 research methods and publication year, also the article categories University of Rochester, New York, USA 2 and publication year, are shown in Figures 6, 7. University of Washington, Seattle, USA 2 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2 DISCUSSION Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Maryland, USA 2 Washington University, St. Louis, USA 2 There is no doubt that citation analysis can provide a large amount of information about journals, authors, institutions, and research directions. It can be used to identify landmark papers and influential journals, and help researchers and provided into the most popular topics regarding the mTBI clinicians discover the basis, current status, and related progress research field earlier by bibliometric analysis, along with the of research. It not only provides a historical review for determination of the characteristics of the specific topics, scientific research in the mTBI field, but also looks forward and the recognition of the major advances in biomedical to its development trends and prospects (11, 12). Insights are research. The 100 top-cited publications were cited between

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TABLE 7 | Article category of the top-100 cited articles.

Category 2010–2019 2000–2009 1990–1999 1980–1989 1970–1979

Neurosciences and 14 26 13 1 1 Neurology Sport Sciences 6 6 0 0 0 General and Internal 4 9 3 0 0 Medicine Rehabilitation 2 8 0 0 0 Pediatrics 2 1 1 1 0 Psychiatry 1 6 0 1 1 Radiology 1 3 0 0 0 Nuclear Medicine 1 3 0 0 0 and Medical Imaging Behavioral Sciences 1 0 1 1 1 CellBiology 1 3 0 0 0 Biochemistry and 1 3 1 0 0 Molecular Biology Research and 1 0 0 0 0 Experimental Medicine Pathology 1 0 1 0 0 Surgery 0 6 1 0 0 Psychology 0 5 1 1 1 FIGURE 5 | Article types vs. decades. Public, 0 1 0 0 0 Environmental and Occupational Health TABLE 6 | Research methods. Biophysics 0 1 0 0 0 Method Record counts Engineering 0 1 0 0 0 Critical Care 0 1 0 0 0 Clinical study 49 Medicine Review 25 Emergency 0 1 0 0 0 Basic science research 10 Medicine Epidemiologic research 8 Health Care 0 0 1 0 0 Meta-analysis 4 Sciences and Services Questionnaires and classiﬁcation 2 Physiology 0 0 2 0 0 Other observational cohort study 2 Sociology 0 0 0 1 0

274 and 1,748 times during the period from 1946 to 2020. The changing trends in the research on mTBI over the past 74 dysfunction, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the years were reflected from the list of the identified publications. recovery time following concussion in collegiate football Nonetheless, certain meaningful observations and results could players (14). be determined, though it being almost impossible to conduct The worldwide productivity of published publications on an elaborate analysis of all the publications that were top- mTBI were concentrated in Australia, Northern Europe, and cited. The pertinent features of the influential publications Northern America, as was evident from the distribution map. in mTBI over the 74 years have been summarized by JAMA-Journal of The American Medical Association published this study. the most mTBI research worldwide, followed by the New England The major part of the most-cited publications in the Journal of Medicine with the highest impact factor. In the mTBI field was from the United States as compared to United States, the author and research group of the highly cited that from any other country, which clearly indicated that papers mainly come from comprehensive universities, both the the publications published from the United States were eastern and the west coast of the US. In Australia and Northern of high quality and standards over the past five decades. Europe, the top mTBI research group publications in the hospital The most top-cited paper focused on the mTBI soldier and medicine center. returned from the Iraq war (13), which provides a great For a long time, the clinical study predominated the mTBI amount of first-hand data to mTBI research understanding. research, from the 1990’s, the review paper attracted more and Other top-cited papers concern to a long-term cognitive more attention. Compared to other disease research fields, the

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FIGURE 7 | Article categories vs. decades. FIGURE 6 | Research methods vs. decades.

research earlier were enabled by the bibliometric analysis proportion of basic science in mTBI was obviously lower (15), of the 100 top-cited publications. Definitely, it would reveal indicating that the mTBI research field does have an insufficient the trends of research requiring development and further accumulation in the injury molecular mechanism study. To investigations besides accelerating the progress of the studies some extent, this insufficiency restricted the improvement of on mTBI. early diagnosis and treatment and becomes the bottleneck of mTBI research and development. In terms of mTBI research classification and chronological distribution, the highest cited DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT papers in mTBI published in the early decade of this century, neurosciences & neurology and sport sciences are the main The data used to support the findings of this study are available categories, behavioral psychology, surgery, and bioengineering from the corresponding author upon request. are also involved. In the last decade, the high cited paper has almost decreased by half, which might be related to the absence of the latest breakthrough in the injury molecular AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS mechanism study. This bibliometric study also has some limitations. Firstly, XD and MC screened the articles. Data were extracted from the mTBI-related publications are being continually cited, each of the articles by JS, XD, and MC. NL, JS, and XD the citation metrics might change since we completed the performed the analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors analyses. Secondly, self-reference bias should be should be taken contributed to the study conception and design, commented on into consideration. Nevertheless, given this research’s breadth, previous versions of the manuscript, read, and approved the richness, and abundant citations, we believe that it can still be final manuscript. invaluable in representing the overall tendency of important publications in the field of mTBI research. FUNDING CONCLUSIONS Funding was provided by the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (2020RC2015), the Improved recognition of the research in the field of traumatic China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020TQ0364), and brain injury and a cross-sectional summary of significant Natural Science Foundation of Hunan (2020JJ5865).

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS this study to Cicely Tyson (1924–2021) and Christopher Plummer (1929–2021) who have inspired generations We thank all the publications and their authors involved of audiences for their unforgettable performances and in this study. In addition, we would like to dedicate personal integrity.

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